WHERE WOMEN HAVE THE VOTE. 



295 



for themselves. In fact, there has been 

 no question at all of forming a block 

 or any special Woman's Party. Such 

 an idea would seem absurd to the Fin- 

 nish mind, as bemg both against nature 

 and common-sense. In Finland the 

 male and female electors do not form 

 two rival armies. Co-operation has 

 existed in all the political parties be- 

 tween men and women. The Finnish 

 women have voted for the various exist- 

 ing political parties in quite the same 

 proportion as the men. The granting 

 of woman's suffrage has caused no 

 change in the proportional strength of 

 the respective political parties. This is 

 the general opinion in Finland. 



THE WOMEN M.P.'S. 

 Every citizen in Finland of 24 years 

 is entitled to vote, and is also eligible 

 as a member of the Diet. It was natu- 

 ral that this privilege should spur on 

 the women to nominate candidates of 

 their own sex for the purpose of bring- 

 ing forward their especial wants in the 

 Diet. But the women voters never 

 had a thought of carrying their de- 

 mands through Parliament by a major- 

 ity of women representatives. They 

 had common-sense enough to admit that 

 men until now, by education and pro- 

 fession, are generally more trained for 

 legislative work than women. Besides, 

 they felt assured that even a smaller 

 number of women, when taking part 

 personall)' in legislation, could easily 

 convince men of the justice of their 

 demands. Proportionately few women, 

 too, have been willing to undertake the 

 responsible task of law-making. The 

 number of women M.P.'s has varied in 

 the different elections, being now 14, or 

 7 per cent, of the whole. Most of them 

 have been re-elected several times by 

 their parties, and not only by the voters 

 of women, but also of men. Some 

 have been obliged to resign on account 

 of health or other j^ersonal reasons. 



In comparison willi the whole num- 

 ber of representatives, 200, the number 

 of women M.P.'s is small, but the result 

 gained by Finnish women is still the 

 greatest achievement in any countr\' 

 where women are eligible as members of 

 Parliament. 



LESS VOLUBLE THAN MEN. 



Many people wonder what the women 

 do in the Finnish Diet. I cannot find 

 any better answer than this : exactly the 

 same as the men. They serve on nume- 

 rous Parliamentary committees, and not 

 only committees dealing with moral and 

 social questions, but also with common 

 as well as fundamental law, labour, 

 commerce, communications, finance, etc., 

 They take part in the discussions and 

 endeavour m every way honesth' to 

 fulfil their duties. As there is co-opera- 

 tion on every question, it is impossible 

 to specify exactly what is clone by 

 women and what by men. Women, 

 whose experience of Parliamentary life 

 is limited to only six years, do not ex- 

 pect to be compared with veterans in 

 legislation, but I think I shall not lay 

 myself open to contradiction when I 

 say that the general standard of capac- 

 ity of the new elements brought in by 

 the franchise reform is as high among 

 women as among men. Statistics have 

 proved that women attend the sittings 

 more regularly and — what, perhaps, is 

 surprising — speak less than men. Good 

 comradeship and mutual confidence are 

 the prevailing features of the relations 

 between men and women while working 

 together in the Diet. 



The women representatives have con- 

 sidered it their especial duty to work 

 for the improvement of the position of 

 women in legal and economic respects. 

 Many proposals brought in b\- them 

 have had a humanitarian purpose or 

 aimed at the improvement of moral and 

 social life. Besides, they have not 

 lacked interest in the great political 

 questions of their country. It is clear 

 that the Bills introduced by women, as 

 they are in a minorit}-, can onl}' be 

 passed by the support of men, but the 

 knowledge that the women are backed 

 by a numerous class of voters causes 

 their proposals to be regarded far more 

 seriously than formerly. 



A MUCH-DISSOLVED PARL'A^IENT. 

 It must be remembered that the Fin- 

 nish Diet, after the introduction of the 

 suffrage reform, has been working in an 

 extremely difficult j-iolitical situation. 

 During six years it has been dissolved 



